What is A Course
in Miracles
What exactly is A Course in Miracles?
The summary from the Introduction is both brief and succinct, but summarizes the core teaching of ACIM perfectly. It reads:
“Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."
A Course in Miracles — often abbreviated ACIM or simply called the Course — is a complete self-study spiritual thought system. It teaches that the way to universal love and peace — or remembering God — is by undoing guilt through forgiving others. The Course focuses on the healing of relationships and making them holy.
ACIM also emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum, of which there are “many thousands.” Consequently, even though the language of the Course is that of traditional Christianity, it expresses a non-sectarian, non-denominational spirituality. A Course in Miracles, therefore, is a universal spiritual teaching, not a religion.
The Course is a three-volume curriculum consisting of the Text, Workbook for Students, and Manual for Teachers.
Workbook for Students
Over the course of a year, you'll be guided by the daily lessons of A Course In Miracles with acclaimed spiritual teachers Aaron Abke and Mark Anthony Lord who will guide you through each ACIM Daily lesson for 365 days in a row. Enjoy starting your mornings with Aaron, Mark, and the LTC Community in practicing forgiveness, surrender, and living from Love.
The Text
The Text is the heart of A Course In Miracles and consists of 31 chapters of dense, articulate spiritual wisdom that Aaron and Mark will guide you through in Year 2 to pull out all of the paradigm-shifting gems which are easy to miss when you are reading the text by yourself. The ACIM text is, in the opinion of many spiritual aspirants, the most brilliant composition of spiritual genius ever written.
Manual for Teachers
The Manual for Teachers is written in question-and-answer form and provides answers to some of the more likely questions a student might ask. It also includes clarification of a number of terms the Course uses, explaining them within the theoretical framework of the Text and for their practical application through the Workbook.
What ACIM is to me:
In the mid-1990s, I went to a lecture on A Course in Miracles. Afterwards, I went to the table in the back of the room where they were selling the book. I picked it up and I remember thinking, "This is my book. This is the book I want to be reading when I take my last breath." Dramatic, for sure! But I also had the thought, "This book is a bitch to read. How am I ever going to do it? It's too complicated."
I bought the book that day, but I quickly put it up on my bookshelf. Over the next couple of years, I would start the lessons, then stop them. I'd read some of the textbook and feel like I was reading something written in a completely different language so back on the shelf it would go. Then, I don't remember if it was a moment or a series of moments, but suddenly something shifted.
The discipline to do the lessons, which seemed so hard to cultivate, was there. When I read the text, sure I still had to slow down in many places, but I was getting it. It's like I was given the decoder, but it was even more than that — simply, A Course in Miracles was suddenly easy to read and digest and enjoy. From that time forward, I have had a love affair with ACIM. It teaches Oneness like no other book I know. A Course in Miracles has within it an undeniable healing vibration that will help you become free from the dream of suffering. It is filled with love and joy.
So often I've heard that ACIM is a heady book and it's not feminine enough in its presentation. That's not my experience. It is clear that it is a course in mind training, and that is exactly what we all need so that we can access the infinite power of our hearts. A Course in Miracles can easily look like a book sitting on the shelf with a world of other books, but to me, it's alive. It's empowering. It's timely. It's here to save the world.
- Mark Anthony Lord
The second most miraculous experience in my life after my sudden awakening experience at 27 was finding A Course In Miracles. I had tried to read this book before, but it didn’t make very much sense to me. But after my 2 week enlightenment experience and being dropped back into the density of ego consciousness again,
I was desperate to find my way back there again. ACIM became like my personal roadmap back to the Kingdom of Heaven. It provided me with an unquestionable framework of Truth and Reality that acted like a serum being injected. Once ACIM gets into you, it will not stop until it completes the job. I devoured the book, reading it day and night, on my breaks at work, all evening at home and first thing in the morning.
ACIM personally walked me by the hand, back into the Peace of God I had so deeply longed for, only this time around I had the foundation necessary to keep it. That foundation, in essence, is the full awareness and conviction that only God exists, and anything else is an illusion with no reality at all. This is the true awakening that ACIM delivers. As the Course says, “True rest comes from waking not from sleeping”.